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Tried a free brush pack versus the $15 Procreate set, and wow.
I was working on a fantasy character piece last week and decided to test both. The free pack had 50 brushes but only about 5 felt smooth and didn't pixelate at 300 DPI. The Procreate set had 20 brushes, but each one worked perfectly with my Apple Pencil's pressure, especially for blending skin tones. After three hours, the piece with the paid brushes just looked way more professional and finished. Has anyone else found a specific brush set that totally upped their game?
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keith9003mo agoTop Commenter
It's a classic trap. Free packs always look good on the download page. The real test is when you're trying to blend and nothing works right. I spent way too long trying to fix bad brushes before just buying a set from an artist I follow. The time saved alone was worth it. Now I only grab free ones if I need a very specific, weird texture.
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ellis.faith3mo ago
Totally get that! I read an article about how free brush sets often have weird pressure settings that mess up your workflow. It makes sense that paying for a tested set saves so much frustration. You really do get what you pay for with digital tools.
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rose_reed1mo ago
Oh man, the blending thing is so real... I remember downloading a massive free pack once and getting so excited, then trying to do a simple skin gradient and it just turned into a muddy mess no matter what I did. I spent like two hours tweaking the brush settings and gave up completely. Finally just paid twelve bucks for a set a friend recommended and it worked perfectly right out of the gate, it was almost embarrassing how easy it was. Totally agree that the time you waste fighting bad tools is way more expensive than the actual cost of a good set.
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Watched my buddy struggle with a free watercolor set for a portrait. Every brush left weird, choppy edges that looked nothing like paint. He finally caved and bought a small, cheap set from a known artist, and the difference in his next piece was night and day. It just flowed onto the canvas.
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